


Skipping Stone

by aboutbunnies



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-08 20:58:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7773136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aboutbunnies/pseuds/aboutbunnies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moments at the unremarkable house, from post-IWTB through post-My Struggle II: <i>things you said under the stars and in the grass.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. August 2010

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anotherthief](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherthief/gifts).



**August 2010**

She leaves him, officially, suitcase and everything, on a Wednesday.

It's a Wednesday for no other reason than it's long past time. She's actually been leaving him, incrementally, for months.

She's had the rented apartment for the better part of a year now, originally staying there only the times she'd been scheduled for back-to-back double shifts, rationalizing to Mulder and to herself that it made more sense for her to stay in the city those nights. Safer to walk just two blocks from the hospital than to risk driving, numb with exhaustion, down an increasingly dark highway into the middle of exactly nowhere, just to turn around and drive back in a few hours.

Over the past several months, she's been staying in the city more often than her work schedule requires. She's not exactly sure that Mulder's noticed.

Actually, _she_ hadn't even realized the extent to which she's been staying away, until this morning, when she'd gone to her side of the closet and discovered all her work suits must be at the apartment, save the one she'd taken off last night when she'd come home late and crawled into bed without him. (Again.) The knowledge stuns her for a moment, the way she's already moved so much of her life away from him. Self-preservation, she knows, but that doesn't make it an easier reality to swallow.

The decision, in the end, isn't really a decision at all. As she pulls her rolling suitcase from the closet, she tells herself this is just the next step. That it'd been inevitable.

There's not much she needs to pack. She gathers up a small stack of library books from her nightstand, wincing at how long they've been overdue, along with a few stray medical journals she keeps meaning to read. She empties what's left of her drawers in their dresser: underwear, bras, pajamas.

When her hand brushes smooth silk she pauses, closing her fingers around the delicate black negligee she'd purchased for Mulder's birthday two years ago. Unexpected warmth pools at her center as she recalls the look in his eyes when she'd dropped her robe to reveal it, the way he'd taken it off of her almost reverently, how they'd made love slowly, as if they'd had all the time in the world. She lets out a breath, careful and even, and stuffs the lingerie at the bottom of the suitcase.

The closet is simple enough to pack; she doesn't have much left here. Similarly, the bathroom. She packs a half-empty box of tampons, a bottle of the lotion only she uses. Her shampoo is already no longer in the shower; she ran out a couple weeks ago and hasn't bothered buying more and instead has borrowed his the mornings she's showered here. She is not so arrogant to deny she'll miss the quick whiff of him in her hair, sometimes.

She goes back through the bedroom, just to make sure she hasn't forgotten anything. She straightens the covers on their bed, fingers playing over the comforter they'd purchased together, back when they'd just come off of being on the run, giddy and drunk on the prospect of finally settling, living somewhere permanent and their own.

His top dresser drawer is halfway open, as it always is, and she goes to shove it closed, purely out of habit. It catches on something and her fingers close around a familiar piece of fabric, soft and thin, Knicks logo faded from years of wear and innumerable washings. After chiding her for stealing his favorite shirt, countless times over the years, he'd always then admitted it'd looked better on her. (“Looks better _off_ of you, too,” he'd frequently added in that quietly suggestive tone of his, back when they still spoke to each other in something other than frustration and worry and utter exhaustion.)

She tugs the shirt from the drawer and holds it to her chest, briefly, wondering if she might allow herself this small indulgence. It's not really a question, in the end, and the shirt is the last item she tucks into the suitcase.

Downstairs, she pauses at the doorway to his office, watching him at his desk, head bowed, back hunched over the surface, over one of the eleven newspapers he has delivered to their house daily. “What's up, Doc,” he intones, and she guesses she's at least glad he's heard her at the door, but then he doesn't turn around, doesn't even look up.

“Mulder, I'm...” she tightens her grip on the handle of the suitcase. “I'm heading out, now.”

He does turn then, and for a brief moment she sees him as she'd first done, so many lifetimes ago: turning towards her in the old basement office, those big glasses and the horrible tie and more light in his eyes than she's seen in a decade. Her throat tightens; she's never known how to mourn the people they were back then.

“Got another surgery toda---” Scully knows the moment he sees the suitcase, and winces at the way his voice cuts out, as if he's run out of breath. He stands then, gripping the back of the desk chair and speaking carefully. “Scully, are you coming _back_?”

She shakes her head slowly, meeting his eyes, “Mulder, I...”

He pushes past her, and she supposes she should be gratified that he's actually leaving that tiny, cluttered room for this, but instead she's suddenly terrified he's going to say something to make her stay. She follows him – she always follows him – she can barely recall a time when she hasn't.

“You know I can't keep doing this,” she says to his back, in their living room with the walls closing in on her. “This isn't – this can't be my life anymore.”

“Come on, Scully, let's talk about this,” he pleads, turning to face her. Time was, her heart would have broken at the desperate look on his face. Now, she almost laughs, painful and bitter. She can't remember the last time he's actually talked to her, in words that aren't his obsessions and conspiracies and dark, sad theories.

“What do you want me to say, Mulder?” She's the one to push past him, then, and she goes out the front door, the suitcase thumping down the porch steps behind her. She hears his footsteps following her, and as she steps out onto their front drive, she pretends it's the bright sunlight making her squint so her eyes water.

“I can't keep doing this,” she repeats, and turns to face him. He's stood in the yellowing grass of late summer and there's a breeze pushing his hair off his forehead and he looks so beautiful in the bright light of afternoon. If only he could stay there. “I can't be in this darkness anymore,” she continues, aching for him to understand. “I can't follow you there, not this time, not anymore. It's suffocating.”

“Scully, I love you,” and he grasps her forearm, rubbing his thumb in familiar circles over her skin.

“I love you, too,” she admits, watching his hand on her arm. She supposes it will always be true. “I just can't keep pretending that's enough.” He drops her arm and she turns away from him then, and he lets her. She opens the door of her car and lifts her suitcase into the back seat, then climbs in the driver's side. And when she puts her hand out the window, towards him, he doesn't take it in his.

It is surprisingly easy to drive away. She breathes easier than she's been able to in weeks, as she watches the house and his figure shrink in the rearview mirror.

When she realizes what she's feeling is relief, she chokes back a sob, sudden and hot in her throat.

 


	2. May 2011

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _A handful of times, she thinks: a handful of times in ten years they’ve spoken their son’s name aloud._

**May 2011**

She wakes in the morning with the knowledge a pounding at her temples, bile at the back of her throat, a suffocating weight on her chest: Her son is ten years old today.

Scully calls in sick to the hospital, a first in her entire tenure at Our Lady, and crawls back into bed.

The late afternoon light casts shadows over her bedroom when she finally stirs again. She pulls herself out of bed, takes a shower, scalding. She combs her fingers through wet hair to settle it, dresses in jeans and the Knicks shirt she always wears when she doesn’t feel well, then an oversized sweater to hide it. In the kitchen, she presses the button to start the coffee she’d readied last night, but as the machine starts to brew and drip, the smell turns her stomach and she punches it off. Ten years and some months ago, she’d not been able to stomach coffee, either.

She should go to confession, she thinks, suddenly, as she fastens her necklace as force of habit. It’s a laughable prospect. She has not confessed in years.

Where would she even begin?

It’s twilight by the time she reaches the house. She lets herself in with the key that’s still on her keyring, and the first thing that registers in the half-light of the living room is a shock of bright yellow on the coffee table, out of place. She steps closer and realizes the surface has been cleared of its usual books and papers and printouts; the small table holds, now, only a bouquet of yellow roses laying on its side, still wrapped in the cellophane from a florist.

There are ten flowers in all.

Hands shaking, she picks up the bouquet. In the kitchen, she has to stand on a chair to get a vase down from the cupboard above the stove. She wants to be angry – she wants to be sad – she wants to be…anything. Instead, she’s still just queasy and numb and her throat is too thick as she runs water to fill the vase. A thorn on one of the roses pricks her thumb as she plunks them into the water and she hisses in a breath through her teeth, sucks her finger into her mouth to stave off the sting.

There’s a rhythmic thumping she finally hears, like something hitting the side of the house from outside. She leaves the flowers on the counter beside the sink and pushes the back door open, shoving it with her shoulder and her hip when it sticks where she’d expected it would. (They’d always said they’d fix that damned door.)

Mulder doesn’t look surprised to see her, doesn’t even really look at her at all. He just continues to throw the basketball against the side of the house, letting it bounce once on the concrete of the patio before he snatches it up again. Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.

There’s a six-pack on the ground with a couple empties beside it. Scully sits cross-legged in the overgrown grass next to the patio and grabs a beer, takes a long sip. She drinks half the bottle, watching him fling the basketball against their house over and over, before her throat clears enough so she can speak.

“Thanks for the flowers, Mulder.” Her voice still sounds strained to her ears.

He misses the next catch and they both watch the ball roll away, past him into the yard. He nods, crouching with his hands resting on his knees, and wipes his brow into his shoulder. “I meant to send them to you…” He sits down beside her, heavily. “I just hadn’t gotten around to it, yet.”

She nods, not sure if it’s an apology, an accusation, or merely a statement of truth. Time was, she’d have known just by his tone, and she can’t remember, now, when she stopped being able to read him without any effort at all.

She watches him in profile, his face just as familiar to her as her own. Tracing the lines of his jaw with her gaze, she takes another long sip of beer, gathering courage. Finally, “He had your chin. The shape of your ears. He–”

“Don’t.” He cuts her off abruptly, squeezing his eyes shut, his hands gripping his knees so tightly his knuckles turn white. “Please don’t, Scully.”

This is what she’d been afraid of, though she’d had no way of knowing it at the time, as she’d clung to him on the floor of his prison cell nine years ago, weeping into his neck that she’d given up their son, that she thought he’d never forgive her. She’d been so, so very afraid of the way he won’t look at her when she talks about him, so afraid of the way they can’t even say his name to each other. A handful of times, she thinks: a handful of times in ten years they’ve spoken their son’s name aloud.

Emboldened – by the beer or by ten yellow flowers or simply by this day itself, she’s not sure – she speaks it aloud, now. “William. I named him William. William for your father.” She places her hand on Mulder’s forearm when he shudders visibly. Now she’s started, she finds she can’t stop. “William for my father.” She tightens her grip on his arm. “William for _his_ father.”

“Scully –”

“Mulder, I don’t even know if that’s still his name,” she finishes, her voice sounding frayed and kind of desperate to her own ears, and she’s going to leave marks on his arm if she holds it tighter so she works, consciously, at loosening her grip.

He opens his eyes then, finally, and before she knows what’s happening, he’s pressing his lips to hers.

She gasps in and tastes his breath and his mouth, sweat and beer, and out of habit, maybe, she dips her tongue out to him. But he keeps it chaste, lips closed and dry against hers, even though she can feel his body tremble beside hers. She understands, and pulls away.

“I should go,” she tells him and he nods, taking her hand to help her to her feet. The fading light of evening means the air has a sudden chill, and she pulls her sweater closer around herself as she looks up at the sky, the first stars just beginning to show. She clears her throat and looks back at him, lets her hand come to rest, just briefly, on his cheek, against the lines and shape he’d bequeathed to their son.

She’s at a stoplight just before the entrance ramp to the highway, almost halfway back to the city, before she remembers the flowers she’d left in the vase beside his kitchen sink. She’s almost decided to turn around, when a horn blares at her from behind. She looks up at the light, now green.

She steels herself and drives on.


	3. December 2012

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Twenty minutes after her arrival, she overhears a snippet of conversation behind her: “Hey, isn't today the day the world's supposed to end?”_

**December 2012**

Halfway through her shift, out of one surgery and downing a protein bar and water before another, she notices the date in black dry erase marker, stark at the top of the admit board in the charge nurse's block-lettered hand: _December 22, 2012_.

Scully sucks in a breath, suddenly lightheaded. Why it hasn't occurred to her before now is beyond her. She puts her hand in the pocket of her scrub top, grips her phone tightly. After several moments of indecision, she refrains from calling him. She can't imagine he'd answer.

She fingers the cross at her neck, the most prayer she allows herself these days, before she shakes herself and goes to scrub in.

After her shift she showers in the staff locker room, discarding blood-spattered scrubs for the slacks and blouse she'd worn this morning. At the sink, fastening her jewelry again, a coworker gives her a wave through the mirror. “See you at the party, Dana?”

 _Shit_. She pulls her hair back into a ponytail, too tight, and winces. She'd forgotten all about the department holiday party, and she returns her colleague's wave, noncommittal, though it probably looks like a “yeah, see you there.”

In the end, she can't figure an out for the party; it's generally expected she be there. By the time she gets to the bar, most people are halfway towards drunk and there's crappy Christmas music being piped through the jukebox. She says hello to her department chief and he slaps a party hat on her head and a wine glass into her hand. She removes the hat and keeps the wine.

She wants to be anywhere else.

The wine glass is, at least, helpful in keeping her hands busy and away from the phone in her purse that she's hyper-aware of, despite telling herself there's no reason he'd call. She smiles and declines politely when a lab tech she knows asks her to dance. She's pulled into several different conversations and is present for none of them. She diligently watches the clock.

Twenty minutes after her arrival, she overhears a snippet of conversation behind her: “Hey, isn't today the day the world's supposed to end?”

Scully swallows against a sudden taste of bile at the back of her throat, and takes her first sip of merlot to tamper the sensation. She presses the wine glass into the next available open hand and murmurs, “I'm sorry, I need to go,” quietly and urgently.

She's on the road in record time, and she finds herself alternating glances between the road and the sky. As she drives out of the city, it's easier to see the stars.

Only the stars.

The house ( _the_ house; she has never gotten used to referring to it as only _his_ , though she certainly can't use a plural pronoun either, anymore) is nearly dark when she pulls up, only the small utility light on above the stove at the back of the house. She makes her way through the front room mostly by feel and memory. She's confident he hasn't changed much at all of the layout or furniture since the last time she was here, save a few more piles of papers and maps and clippings – her toe nicks one such pile and she hears pages shift and slip to the floor.

His coat is missing from its usual hook by the back door, and she pulls hers tighter around her body as she shoulders the door that still sticks, open. The light from the kitchen window illuminates just enough of the backyard for her to make out his silhouette, seated in one of the old metal chairs from the front porch.

“Mulder?”

His shoulders rise slightly but he doesn't otherwise acknowledge her presence. She moves closer to him, the frost-brittled grass crunching under her steps, and she can see now that the telescope they'd bought their first Christmas in this house is set up to his left. Maps and printouts litter his lap.

She breathes out carefully, working around a sudden thickness in her throat. “Mulder...” she manages, “How long have you been out here?”

He does turn then, and nods. “Saved you a seat, Scully.”

And she's shocked to find he actually _has_ : there's a second chair from the porch beside his, even a blanket from the couch draped over the back. She blinks against an unexpected burning in her eyes, and sits beside him, watching their breath disappear as clouds into the night.

“There's been nothing, Scully,” he finally admits, his bare, chapped fingers rustling the papers on his lap. “No movement, no changes, not even any reports on MUFON, all day.”

She doesn't know what to say. What _can_ she say? I'm sorry hostile aliens haven't come to colonize Earth? I'm sorry the Mayans got the date wrong? I'm sorry this isn't the end of the world?

She watches him, silent. His beard has grown in longer than she's seen it before, his hair is disheveled, cheeks reddened from the cold. He looks so lost. _I'm sorry you're no closer to the truth today than you were yesterday, than we were fifteen years ago._ She can't say it aloud. She shifts on the chair he'd set out for her, on this night in the backyard of their house, and she thinks he knows, anyway.

“It's freezing out here, Mulder.” She ventures a hand to cover one of his. “ _You're_ freezing. Come inside, I'll make us some tea.”

“Thanks, Scully.” He glances at her, and she thinks a corner of his mouth turns up, just slightly. “But I think I'd like to watch a while longer.”

She takes the blanket from the back of her chair and wraps it so it encircles them both, and tips her face up towards the stars.

 

**Author's Note:**

> My soundtrack while writing this was Amos Lee's Skipping Stone, hence the title. Give it a listen [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnfntGP9QEY).
> 
> All subsequent parts of this fic are in editing mode, so should be posted in a somewhat timely fashion. This thing took on a mind of its own and blew itself way out of proportion, so...sorry? I think. Yeah, I'm probably sorry.
> 
> This can also be read [on my tumblr](http://about-bunnies.tumblr.com/post/148960525822/mulderscully-6-things-you-said-under-the-stars).


End file.
